Hermione Granger and the shadows of time
by Chris1101011
Summary: Time is a complex thing and if it is manipulated who knows what will happen. And most importantly, who realizes that things have changed? Featuring Hermione in her sixth year at school, spoilers up to book seven.


**Hermione Granger and the shadows of time**

**Disclaimer:**

I don't own Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling does. This is a non profit fan fiction.

**Short info:**

This will be a not-that-long-but-who-knows(TM) fanfic from the viewpoint of Hermione. The story is set around the consequences of manipulating time, playing in the sixth year of Hermione's school life. I won't try that hard to be true to the characters in this fanfic, I want it to be a bit more realistic so there will be some (legally speaking) mature (in reality, teen) themes, the characters are teenagers after all. If this offends you, you shouldn't read this.

**Ships:**

Usually I'm a Harry/Hermione shipper, but I don't know what will happen in this fanfic as far as relationships go. If it looks like Hermione is interested in Harry, it may be just because I usually write it this way And maybe she is interested in Harry, who knows, I don't (yet)

**Spoiler warning:**

You should have read book one to seven, or you'll feel sorry. This fanfic plays before book seven but I will use some of the information from book seven in this fanfic, mostly things about Dumbledore's past and anything that I feel is necessary.

**Author's note:**

I'm not a native english speaker, I'm german and beside the crap they teached us in school, I learnt english mostly by reading technical manuals since I'm a programmer and also by watching a lot of english TV series, so there will be a few really dumb grammatical errors from time to time and my english may sound a bit weird. If you can't live with that, you should click the back button on your webbrowser now :) To readers of my other fanfiction, "Hermione comes to the rescue", there will be a new chapter out soon, sorry for the long delay

**Chapter 1: Hermione Granger**

Hermione went out of the common room doing the things she usually did when bored to death by Ron and Harry's hour long talks about Quidditch playoffs, Quidditch teams, Quidditch players and what not. She went to the library, her safe place, her center of calm. There were people there too, true. Not many though and even those few who spent a bit of their time learning in the school library didn't bother Hermione at all. As soon as she sat down in front of one of the school librarie's many desks, with a book of her choice from the vast amount of knowledge that the library provided her with, she felt as if she was the only person on earth. Some people may think that would be a bad thing. Hermione did, too. But there were times when she felt good about it, especially while reading a book and being sucked into it as if it was a black hole. Feeling as if she would be left alone in the universe, with long lines of text the only company life provided her with.

No one understood that, not even the teachers did. From time to time some of them asked her to stay behind after class for a minute. Asked her how she felt and tried to tell her in more or less subtle ways that there were other things than learning. Professor McGonagall of all persons even mentioned boys and after a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, she even suggested girls, which was followed by another few seconds of even more uncomfortable silence. It wasn't that Hermione didn't fancy the idea of having someone to be intimate with. Sometimes she even daydreamed about it like everyone else does. It was just that there was no time for that. She would have all the time in the world to experiment, but time for a whole relationship? Whomever it was that she'd choose as her partner wouldn't be able to spend as much time with her as that person would maybe want to. And she didn't want to just experiment.

Every time the teachers approached her, Hermione thanked them for caring, but shook her head and politely declined their offers to talk about it. The teachers stopped talking about it with Hermione after a few years of school had passed. They still had their thoughts about it, but now in her sixth year they mostly left Hermione alone. She was glad about that, it bothered her that people were concerned about her. She didn't want anyone to feel bad for her, but she couldn't do anything about it. She had a black hole of her own, in her head. Her brain. It had an eternal lust for knowledge and sucked the books dry of any information they could provide.

If knowledge was intelligence, Hermione could at some point become the most intelligent person that ever lived. Albert Einstein couldn't compete with her if he was still alive. Research on his corpse's brain showed that it wasn't extraordinary good in terms of being able to remember everything down to the tiniest details like Hermione's brain was capable of. Albert Einstein had an illness which made some wires in his brain create new connections to other parts of his brain all the time, thus making him able to think quicker than any other person. Albert Einstein was seemingly intelligent because he lived hundreds of years in just a few decades because of his illness. Hermione wasn't a quick thinker. Harry was. But was Harry more intelligent than her by any means? No. There may be other people in the world who have a memory as good as Hermione's. Maybe even better. But not many and even less could bring themself to learn as much as Hermione did. What good is an enormous memory warehouse if it's just half filled due to lazyness or priorities that feature knowledge not among the top 3 places?

The only problem with that was that death loomed around her all the time and that frightened her. She may well die with Harry and Ron in the war with Voldemort. All her knowledge would then have been useless. All her time spent learning would have been for nothing and she would never have had the chance to explore the joys of love or even just physical closeness. That's what had bothered her for the whole last year. Before that she was able to just not think about it, now it got harder and harder with the war becoming more and more real every day. But whom would she choose if she was to really start going out with someone? Ron and Harry were the most obvious choices. Her two bestest of friends. More Harry than Ron. She liked Ron, she loved Ron, but without Harry she wouldn't have been Ron's friend at all, he just wasn't tolerant enough. Ron hated Hermione's longing for knowledge and he told her so numerous times. The problem with Harry was that he maybe thought too much about the war and Voldemort so that being able to be in a relationship maybe wasn't even possible for him right now. And he never gave her the feeling that he would fancy her anyhow. Well, she didn't either.

Ginny was her best friend among the girls. She even had her first kiss with Ginny. Ginny pleaded with her to help her learn how to kiss, she said some of the other girls tried it with their best friends and because Hermione was her best friend, she would feel most comfortable with her, so Hermione agreed after some time. Maybe Ginny would be the right person. "Gosh I don't even know if I'm into boys or girls", Hermione said to herself and then looked around frantically, shock written on her face after remembering that she wasn't alone in the library after all, but no one had noticed her mumbling under her breath. No, she wouldn't go for a girl. She already had enough problems due to being a bookworm, being a lesbian too would be just too much to handle at the moment. Hermione did virtually have no self-esteem. At all. When Ron in her first year in school said those awful things about her to Harry, she didn't stood up for herself and punched him, like Ginny would have done. Hermione smirked thinking about that. No, she didn't stood up for herself. She ran away. Cried in the girl's bathroom. When Hermione was the victim of one of Malfoy's curses and her teeth got longer than they already were, Snape made that snide remark about not seeing any difference. She cried then too. Well, her self-esteem improved over the years. Punching Malfoy and the reactions of the boys to her on the Yule ball helped a lot, but she was still far away from being secure about herself.

And there was Professor Lockhart, that git, and Victor Krum. She fancied them and they were no girls, were they? Well, Professor Lockhart was a bit girly maybe. But Victor Krum was as manly as they get. "Oh perfect, maybe I'm bisexual", she mumbled and again, scolded herself for whispering that instead of just thinking it. Bisexual wouldn't be an option she told herself, her life was complicated enough as it was without having to be either in a relationship with two people at the same time or being in a relationship with just one person but longing for something that this person could never give her because he wasn't both boy and girl. So she was back to Harry. Harry Potter, the boy who lived. Did she have feelings for him? Well, yes. She loved him, as she loved Ron. But was she also physically attracted to Harry? She didn't know, she never thought about it. She knew him so long that she never had thought about looking at him that way. She decided to find out if she was attracted to him over the next couple of days, maybe even later today. How, she didn't know. Staring maybe. Sitting close to him, maybe brushing her body against his if she could manage to do so without it looking as though she tried to do exactly that.

Maybe rubbing herself against her best friend to see if she was attracted to him was a bit too much, though she had to agree that the thought of that did make her feel something. Well, sure it does, I even like it when my blanket brushes against my body, it doesn't have to do anything with Harry, stupid, she thought. That's when someone tipped her on the shoulder which resulted in Hermione jumping up from her chair shouting on top of her lungs, the chair crashing onto the floor and the person who tipped Hermione on the shoulder starting to shout, too while jumping a step back in fright.

"Merlin, Hermione. You scared the shit out of me! I think I peed a little", Ginny said, trying to catch her breath. Her heart beat so fast as if it would explode any moment now. Hermione looked sorry. "I'm sorry Ginny, I was deep in thought and when you touched me.. I just wasn't expecting it. Sorry."

"Well, that's natural when you're stuck here all day in the library, not expecting people or even acknowledging their presence."

"I wasn't here the whole day, Ginny." Hermione said, rolling her eyes a bit. Same old, same old. People telling her how boring she is.

"For hours at least, come on now, I came here to pick you up. Harry and Ron need you, they have problems with their Potions essays."

"Why don't they come to me then, the library is the best place to research for their potions essay" Hermione said.

"Okay, you got me, there is no potions essay, I just said that because I thought that school work would attract you in some weird Hermione ish way. Well, actually there is a potions essay, but I think they can manage that on their own. Not as good as with your help, but still. They just want to spent a bit time with you, they are sorry that they exclude you so often from their talks by covering the great topic of Quidditch more often than bearable for you."

"Why didn't they come here themselfs then to go fetch me?" Hermione asked.

"Don't be so difficult Hermione, they didn't actually say anything. They are boys for Merlin's sake. I just figured it out by their motions. When Ron scratched his groin and Harry twitched wis his right foot, I just knew they missed you" Ginny said.

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "So, when Ron scratches his groin, he misses me? I don't want to be rude Ginny, but I do think you need to spent some time thinking about changing careers. Being a man to female translator just isn't the right thing for you."

"Oh come on, he wants you and you know it. He's getting a hard on every time he sees you since that Yule ball where you had to look so absolutely gorgeous" Ginny said.

"Ginny! Stop talking like that" Hermione said, but giggled despite of herself. "And thanks for saying that I'm gorgeous. But what's that about the twitch in Harry's foot?" she asked Ginny.

"Dunno, it was the first thing that came to my mind. You're so irritating, with you, everything needs a reason" Ginny joked. "Merlin! The ceiling fell down on my head, we just HAVE to find out who did that. Let's go into the library to reasearch. Those ceiling crashers must be stopped. No time for a visit in the hospital wing, the clues to that devious crime aren't found by lying in bed doing nothing. Or is it maybe that you want that Harry scratched his groin thinking about you, too? You know I'm completely over him, you can have him if you like, just tell me all the juicy details when you're done researching his-"

"GINNY! Stop it right now. Merlin, what's gotten into you?" Hermione shrieked.

Ginny laughed. "Oh, I'm sorry Hermione. I don't know. Just come with me then I'll stop talking. Until we're back in the common room at least."

Hermione didn't want to argue with Ginny so she followed her back to the Gryffindor common room. Hermione was still standing when Ginny already sat down in front of the fireplace, where Harry and Ron where still talking about Quidditch. There was someone with them that Hermione didn't know. Someone whom she never has seen before in her life, which was a bit odd because he seemed to be around her age and after so many years in Hogwarts, she should know every Gryffindor by now except maybe some of the first year students. "Who's your new friend", she asked Harry who was talking animatedly with that new guy.

"What new friend?" Harry asked while turning his head to Hermione. Yeah, make fun of me Harry she thought and raised an eyebrow. She pointed at the person in question and asked again. "Him. Who is he?"

All four stared at Hermione as if she was mental. "Ehm, that's Joey? Joey whom we were friends with for like, I don't know, three years?" Ginny said to Hermione.

Oh joy, they are all in on the joke. That's so very nice of them, Hermione thought angrily. But then she remembered. She remembered eating breakfast with Joey at the Gryffindor table in the great hall just yesterday morning. And the day before that. And she also remembered studying with him in the library for history of magic just a few weeks ago.

"Is everything alright, Hermione?" Harry asked concerned.

Hermione looked as if she had seen a ghost, but then she smiled and said "Everything alright, I was just teasing Joey" and she sat down beside Ginny. How could I forget Joey? I completely forgot him, not just what we did yesterday, or last week. I forgot his whole existence. I should talk with Madam Pomfrey about this tomorrow, maybe someone cursed me she thought.

**Closing comments:**

I hope the thoughts of Hermione not even knowing if she likes boys or girls didn't feel too weird. I wrote that part to make it even more clear how seldom Hermione usually confronts herself with questions about her personal life. She usually cares more about others like Harry and Ron, or about School and knowledge gathering in general. She doesn't even know who she is herself. Since statistics say that 35 of all women had something or liked the idea of having something with another woman at least once in their lifes, I think it's not too far fetched that Hermione would think about something like that.

Well, I hope you liked the first chapter. I haven't written anything in months so it could take some time until writing feels right again for me :)

For people who are interested in that kind of stuff, the thing about Albert Einstein's brain is true. I don't know if I got it right completely because I read that years ago, but they found out that he wasn't uber-intelligent at all but a really quick thinker due to an illness that was affecting his brain. They are still doing research on his brain as far as I know, which is a bit gross but well, that's science


End file.
